Many
of the files, which come from a tribunal that judged thousands of
appeals against conscription, have supporting letters, typed or
handwritten on shoddy wartime paper. Often the letters have
heartbreaking pleas from relatives fearing they will be left destitute,
or explanations from employers of how their businesses might be
destroyed.

Some of the letters are more startling, however. There
is the anonymous denunciation of the Finchley butcher Charles Rubens
Bushey, which says: "He made a heap of money in this shop, he is a
proper rotter of a man."

The case of Harry Ward, a 20-year-old
conscientious objector who strikingly described himself as "foreign
correspondent and bookkeeping clerk", led to questions in parliament
over claims that the tribunal chairman told him that as a socialist it
was impossible he was a man of conscience. Ward lost the appeal but
survived the war.